


i'm a walking tragedy

by justasadsong (deathlys)



Category: All Time Low, Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, Gen, Immortality, Implied Relationship, Insanity, M/M, Multi, Songfic, alternate universe-superhuman, and madness is shared among two, lyrics, where insanity becomes a sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:42:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathlys/pseuds/justasadsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm gonna leave you.</p><p>I'm gonna teach you.</p><p>How we're all alone.</p><p>In which Pete is immortal and Patrick is the greatest man in the universe. They save lives. They begin a new world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm a walking tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> It was only a fic  
> how did it end up like this

Patrick knows something is wrong when he wakes up to blinding sunshine and rolls over in his bed to find that Pete is not there. He gets worried, because Pete is Pete, and knowing this fact, he’s likely to have driven himself to the edge of the desert in order to attempt to drink himself to death or something stupid.

 

It’s stupid because Pete is Pete and that’s not really possible. Dying, that is.

 

Patrick smooths down his clothes and goes into the only other room, which is basically a kitchen and living room combined. There’s a mug on the table that’s empty.

 

He checks the few cabinets they have. Nothing is missing. The motorbike is, though, and that kind of confirms it. Pete’s the only one who could’ve taken it.

 

There are only two others at the camp; a stoic, strong boy named Spencer who is clever and loyal and lively, and his elfish counterpart whose name is Ryan. They occupy the second-largest cabin; Pete and Patrick have the smallest.

 

Patrick’s not quite sure of Ryan and Spencer are together. Like, together-together. They confide in each other, and Ryan rarely ever answers directly to him or Pete, but their relationship reminds him more of Pete and Mikey’s than anything else.

 

Thinking of Mikey (And Frankie, and Gerard, and Ray and Bob) hurts. Patrick hasn’t seen him since before the bounty hunters. “He’ll come,” Pete is always saying, but even though he’s Pete, Patrick doesn’t quite want to believe him, just in case he’s disappointed. He’s had a little too much of that.

 

Maybe he’s just been here too long. Almost a year, and Ryan and Spencer only showed up a couple of months ago. They refuse to speak of their previous situation, so Patrick doesn’t know the state of any of the cities.

 

Everybody could be dead. Not according to Pete, though: “Soon,” he keeps saying, and always closes his eyes to see better.

 

They’re incredibly far away from anything that even resembles civilization. The city he and Pete came from is the closest, and its two weeks by foot. To get here, you have to cross the desert, the river, and the bad part of the forest (the part that everyone shivers to think about).

 

“Patrick,” someone says. He looks up, not realizing he’s been staring at his reflection in the sink for the good part of ten minutes.

 

“I’m going to find Pete,” he says, sounding snappish. Ryan is the one standing in the doorway, not Spencer, which is unusual.

 

“I just wanted to say good luck,” he says, simply, but it’s as if h knows something that Patrick doesn’t. (But that _can’t_ be, because Patrick is a Gifted, he knows—)

 

“Yeah, thanks.”

 

+++

 

They have a car, thank god, shitty as it is, because the walk to the desert is over a day. Just the thought of going through the forest by himself, with no protection, is terrifying. Even when Patrick’s in the car, surrounded by rusty metal and cracked glass, he still has to avert his eyes from the terrors he knows are watching him.

 

Patrick finds Pete sitting in the sand, just a few miles away from the line where tree roots dig into sand and the grass stops growing. Pete looks incredibly small; knees pulled up to his chest, head resting on his crossed arms.

 

“What happened?” he asks immediately, sitting next to Pete, even though Patrick knows he won’t answer for another hour, maybe.

 

Pete blinks, like he’s watching something in his head. Patrick wonders what, because he knows Pete is powerful—maybe the most powerful—but he doesn’t know what extent that is. Pete rarely ever tells him anything that relates to his gift. Patrick isn’t even sure he knows what it is. When he does say things, it’s always coded in metaphors and clever twists of words.

 

“Pete,” he sighs warily. “You have to tell me.”

 

“Nightmares.”

 

His response is flat, but then he clears his throat and continues.

 

“It’s kind of worth it because I know now. All of them are coming. I sent out a signal, like a broadcast. They’re all going to arrive, and they’re going to make it to the camp, like Ryan and Spencer did—”

 

Pete interrupts himself with his smile, if that makes sense. Patrick wonders even harder what he’s talking about.

 

“You’re confused.”

 

He swallows. “Because you never tell me anything!”

 

“Not true.” Pete sounds amused, and then sad. He asks Patrick a question, “You wonder if I’m sane all the time, don’t you? Why I chose you, why we left everyone. Why I chose the camp, and all this other bullshit. I’m made of it, at this point.”

 

“You’re not made of bullshit. You’re crazy as hell, but it’s kind of genius how crazy you are.”

 

“Thanks.” Pete squints, because the sun’s bright—it’s about noon now, Patrick thinks—and continues. “There used to be a city here, Pat. This desert is left of some long ago, sprawling, polluted creature. It’s like the scar of humanity. Nothing wants to grow in the footprint of some beast.”

 

Patrick wonders how that’s relevant. Pete catches the end of his thought, and grins.

 

“The people who lived in that city did _something_ good, you know? I think it’s where the very first Gifteds started, maybe years before we turned into outlaws. The universe told them to build the camp that we live in, and they did.”

 

“Where are they now?”

 

Pete shrugs. “Dead, I guess. They probably fell into the hands of the hunters.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

Pete laughs. “Cause I need your help, Pat! The others are going to start showing up. People from far away and a few people we know. And I needed to tell you before I can’t anymore.”

 

Patrick turns to look at him. His face glows darkly, like the orange expanse of sand in front of them. “What does that mean?” he asks, slowly, like he’s not sure if he wants to know the answer.

 

“You know I’m powerful. I’m meant to be the leader. The beginning of it all. Taking care of everyone, right? And I need your help to do that. Say yes. Either way, you’re going to.”

 

“Um. Yes.” Patrick thinks Pete is babbling, but whatever. He supposes, if people do start showing up at the camp, it’ll make sense to him eventually. “Can we go back now? I’m pretty sure Ryan and Spencer have gotten worried.”

 

Pete shrugs and stands up, brushing off sand. Patrick sighs and looks from the bike to the car, wondering if they can strap it to the car.

 

+++

 

Pete screams. Patrick only hears him because Pete falls out of bed doing so, and his scream isn’t very loud because contrary to popular belief, Pete is not a very loud, extroverted person.

 

“Pete!” He’s standing up, as quickly as possible, and grabs Pete by his skinny arms. Nightmares again. Fuck. “Are you okay?! Pete, you ass, fucking _listen_ to me—”

 

He kind of shudders in Patrick’s arms. “Pat? Pat, fuck,” and his eyes are squeezed shut, like he’s seeing something that he doesn’t want to but can’t look away.

 

“Open your eyes, Pete, come on, you little fucker.” He shakes Pete, who only lolls limply. “I’m right here.”

 

Pete relaxes. “Yeah, I know.” His eyes are still closed. “Sorrysorrysorry,” he repeats, as if the words aren’t enough— _they never are_ —and tries to pry himself away from Patrick’s arms.

 

“What were you dreaming about?”

 

“Nothing.” He sits on the edge of the bed.

 

“I’m serious.”

 

“Me too. I don’t remember.”

 

Pause. “How soon?”

 

Pete looks up. He can feel Patrick’s resignation. “What?” he asks anyway, because Patrick doesn’t usually change the subject so quickly. He’s usually more persistent.

 

“How soon are the people supposed to start showing up? The Gifteds?”

 

“It’ll take a while.” Pete isn’t looking him in the eye. “I mean. The cities have gotten so bad it’s hard for them to even think about leaving. But they all got the message; I made sure of that.” Then he grins at the floor. “You’ll like them.”

 

Patrick tries to think about what this means. He knows how terrifying the cities were when they left, and they must be even worse, now—maybe that’s why the Gifteds started showing up everywhere. To fight the corruption?

 

It sounds kind of (really) stupid, but he’s not really sure what else to think. It’s not like Pete will tell him. Maybe this is how the universe deals with itself. Humanity’s solution to the monster it’s become.

 

“Come on,” he says absently, and grabs Pete’s hand. “You might want some water.”

 

+++

 

Two weeks later, Pete’s had no nightmares for at least four days. Patrick feels happier than he has in a while, and then three boys show up, wandering into the camp tentatively.

 

Pete is quietly excited, and he already knows their names. They’re all somewhat brunette-ish, and maybe a year or two younger than Patrick is. He notices a few characteristics that make them stand out from each other; the oldest one has a camera around his neck. The other two are younger, one with nearly black hair and  pair of glasses in his pocket, and the other one with streaked, light hair that is messy and reaches past the nape of his neck.

 

“Jon, Brendon, and Alex,” names Pete, grinning maniacally, and for some reason they don’t look too surprised.

 

Patrick’s chest hurts looking at them, especially Brendon and Alex. They’re covered in innocence, he thinks:  it’s smeared all over their faces and in the way they hold themselves and he can feel it radiating from them like he feels sadness and self-hatred coming from Pete.

 

“You’re Pete,” Jon says.

 

“The one and only,” Pete says, grinning and sounding like the asshat he was before he and Patrick had happened.

 

“And you’re Patrick.”

 

“Pete,” says Patrick, because Pete never said he’d mentioned him in his mental broadcast, and because Jon’s face softens for just a moment when he looks at Patrick.

 

“Don’t worry about it, Pat.”

 

“It’s kind of my job to worry about it,” he says, but doesn’t add anything else. To the group, he says, “Do you guys want to find a cabin? There are like twenty of them and only two are being used.”

 

“That would be nice,” says Brendon, at the same time that Alex asks, “Is there anyone else here?”

 

“Two. Ryan and Spencer. Do you know them?”

 

They shake their heads no. Patrick follows them to a cabin.

 

+++

 

Pete digs out his journal and scribbles furiously in it for the majority of the day. After about three days of this, Patrick sees him whispering in a low voice to Ryan, who nods and recites something from his own book. Pete grins madly.

 

Patrick doesn’t really think much of it, except that he can’t get into Pete’s head like he used to be able to. It’s kind of like Pete is keeping him out of stuff on purpose.

 

He tries to ignore it, because Pete is good with the words. The words, in return, are good to Pete.

 

+++

 

“Sing me to sleep, Pat,” Pete says sleepily, and rolls over. His clothes are rumpled and messy and bunch up to show delicate slivers of his hips, the side of his tummy, the inside of his thigh.

 

“Sing what?” because Patrick is not like Pete; can’t just come up with Shakespeare-worthy lines when he feels like it.

 

Pete starts humming. “Remember before the hunters came, when we went to that shitty abandoned venue to hear Gerard sing?” and keeps humming.

 

Patrick recognizes it. “We’ll meet again when both our cars collide,” he sings, clear and loud in the dim night, and the line leaves a feeling of nostalgia in the air and in his throat when he swallows. Pete’s eyes are closed, and he smiles into the pillow.

 

The next morning, Patrick finds a yellowed piece of paper, torn from Pete’s journal, that’s taped next to the window that their bed sits under. Long live the car crashed hearts.

 

+++

 

Patrick gets it. The collision of their lives was so sudden they might as well have run over each other.

 

+++

 

Jon’s group has been with them about a week. Brendon and Ryan have become exceptionally close, and Patrick sees Brendon flipping through the pages of Ryan’s book a few times.

 

So that leaves Jon and Spencer, and they smile at each other over a fire Patrick’s forced to make one night, when it’s too cold and with nothing better to do. Jon points his camera at Spencer, who laughs, mouth bright, and they grin at each other so widely Patrick thinks they could burst into flames and burn forever.

 

Alex is the youngest. It breaks Patrick’s heart a little, seeing him crack stupid (sometimes immature) jokes and not fit in. Patrick hears him humming to himself, sometimes, and wants to say something. He doesn’t, and hits himself for it.

 

Pete sleeps for about fourteen hours straight and coughs up blood and shoves Patrick away (which hurts, in a lot of ways) and runs out to some poisonous-looking bushes and pukes for fifteen minutes. He’s so exhausted it gets all over his hands.

 

“Why is this happening?” comes out of Patrick’s mouth, addressing no one, and he feels sick. He feels sick at the sight of how much pain Pete is in, and how he can’t do anything about it.

 

“Yes, you can,” Pete groans, and retches. “Go greet the newcomers.”

 

“I—what?” His voice turns bewildered (cause _goddammit_ , Pete), but he turns around, and Jon is standing there, and so is Mikey and his brother Gerard and Frank and Ray and some tall guys behind them.

 

“Pete!” Mikey yells, hoarse, at the same time Patrick’s mouth drops and he goes, “Fucking shit.”

 

+++

 

The new group doubles the size of the camp. The Way brothers and company take a cabin, and the other three—Jack, Gabe, and William—decide to meet the other residents first.

 

Patrick tucks Pete back into bed with a cup of hot water and a bowl of instant soup—one of the last packets of it—and stands outside to watch. He notices the wind. It’s not summer anymore.

 

He sees Jack say something to Alex, who laughs. Then Alex replies with something else, and they both laugh. Jack has a guitar case strapped to his back, and he sees eyes light up when he pulls it out.

 

Gabe and William are tall and skinny and polite, and they’ve brought one small suitcase of food and other supplies from the city. They say they know how to get more, and—Patrick thinks they might actually survive together out here.

 

Then he thinks about how there are fourteen of them now, and sighs.

 

+++

 

They begin having almost nightly campfires. Pete comes out one evening, to the delight of everybody, especially Patrick, and grins when he sees Jack’s guitar being passed around.

 

“Still making music?” he directs towards Mikey and Gerard, who both nod.

 

“Had to keep it private,” says Gerard, while Frank fiddles with the acoustic and hums a little.

 

Frank starts strumming, and Gerard begins a song he calls Summertime, which he says he began writing before they left and finished while they were crossing the desert.

 

“Our car broke down in the middle of it,” he says, swaying to Frank’s rhythm, “we were stuck fixing it for days. I would have gone insane without this song.”

 

And he starts singing, Patrick mouthing some lines with him (they’re so perfect and true and beautiful it hurts), and even though the song’s shaky, the night ends in tears and everybody holding hands.

 

“Here,” Gerard hands Patrick some torn paper—everybody seems to have brought journals, which is neat—and shrugs, both of them still buzzing with the energy of the song. “That thing was all improve, cause I only got some of the stuff down. Uh. Give it to Pete?”

 

Patrick almost asks why he doesn’t just give it to Pete himself, but he nods and says thank you. It’s fucking suspicious how everybody seems to know something about Pete that he doesn’t.

 

+++

 

“See, I do need your help,” Pete proclaims the next day. He finishes his notebook that evening and starts a new one given to him by William. After Patrick is back from checking on all the cabins, Pete shows him what he’s written.

 

Fell out of bed, butterfly bandage//but don’t worry//you’ll never remember, your head’s far too blurry.

 

“I wrote it for you.”

 

Pete says it sort of absently, and that makes Patrick wonder who he wrote the first book for. A girl? His old friends? Ashlee, Andy, Joe? Bob? (Patrick doesn’t want to think about Bob. Gerard told him about what happened.)

 

“What do you want me to do with this?”

 

“I don’t know. Turn it into a song.”

 

“When I have time.” It sounds like a promise. Patrick flips through the rest of the book. The pages are exceptionally clean an white, like someone had preserved it just for someone else to write in it.

 

On the last page, crooked, is a phrase someone has inked in with a typewriter.

 

Words live forever, but people don’t.

 

+++

 

Evenings around the campfire become a regular occurrence, and the guitar has become a symbol of their meager existence.  They share songs until they aren’t able to stay awake anymore.

 

“It’s great,” Pete tells him. “The music is great, and distinctive, and it means they’re settling in. Getting along.”

 

Patrick agrees. They’re sharing chores, and bringing in food and water and caring for each other unexpectedly. Sometimes he forgets why they’re here, and when he sees Jon cut himself on a knife (blood pouring to the ground like he’s a hose), Spencer, who can heal, rushes over and clamps his palm over the wound.

 

That’s when everyone begins using their gifts more openly, after years of keeping them hidden.

 

(Patrick remembers having to get used to calling himself Gifted; meeting in the abandoned subway with all the others, and not being known as a freak. Gifted, they said. Not mutants of monsters or deviant pieces of shit.

 

That was where he met Pete.)

 

Pete says it’s progress. There’s _trust_ , now, and loyalty, if they’re willing to expose themselves like this.

 

(Patrick remembers when the hunters shut down the meetings in the subway. He and Pete—and Andy and Joe and Mikey and Bob—had barely escaped.

 

Then they made the connection, and began shutting down all the clubs and executing anyone who made music.)

 

Patrick yawns. He’s not really bothered with the task of watching over everyone, especially since Pete is sick, but it’s kind of exhausting. Spencer can’t fix what’s wrong with Pete, and neither can the pills they find in Gabe and William’s suitcase.

 

The camp is a flood of music. Someone’s singing, or strumming, or makeshift drumming, at any moment, and it’s nice. The music is good. In another life, Patrick would have gladly worked with any of them.

 

They try to get him to sing, but he politely refuses. He’d much rather listen to them, anyway. Tonight, the sun hasn’t even set yet, and he decides to go to sleep early. Pete’s already breathing slowly, and Ryan and Brendon are singing about the world and a lack of love, so he puts a sweater on and crawls in between the sheets.

 

Pete stirs a little, and he winces, trying to get closer without waking him up. There’s been no vomiting or nightmares for nearly a week, and he needs to keep it that way. Pete complains of headaches, though, and Patrick has no idea if that should be significant to him.

 

Pete snuffles into the pillow. It’s rather cute.

 

He manages to drape his arm over Pete’s lower back, half-cradling him. If he listens, Pete’s heart is beating, hard and fast, and so very fucking alive.

 

_It’s like your own personal tempo, Pete says, and hooks his chin over Patrick’s shoulder._

 

Pete’s hand is crushed under his chest, so Patrick reaches for it. The thrumming of Pete’s heartbeat pounds against his hand, and his own heart aches.

 

He falls asleep. He’s woken up once, by Mikey, maybe just a few hours before the sun rises. Mikey drapes a blanket over the both of them and tells Patrick that he’ll take care of everyone tomorrow.

 

“Now sleep,” he orders, and Patrick does.

 

+++

 

Gerard and Mikey run the camp the next day, and Patrick lets them. Pete’s almost normal, and he wants to keep it that way. He’s writing again, deep in thought and fingers covered in ink, and Patrick makes sure he drink water and eats and doesn’t forget to go to the bathroom.

 

Jack and Alex drink the last of someone’s liquor, and wander between the cabins singing about sex. The value of this moment lives in metaphor. They end up fucking behind Gabe and Williams’ cabin.

 

“I think it’s cute.”

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

“They ran away for us, Patrick. It’s good that they found love here.”

 

“Not like they had much of a choice, though.”

 

Pete shrugs. “At least it’s good for them. They’re going to do great things.”

 

“What?”

 

Pete only grins. “Great things, Patrick. One day.”

 

Maybe he’s being incoherent again. “What about us? What are we going to be?”

 

“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be eternal.”

 

+++

 

Patrick hums to himself, louder than usual, as he sorts through wet clothes. Pete’s been walking around, talking to everybody, and the camp has been more productive than usual.

 

Pete leaves his words for Patrick everywhere, scrawled in his ebbing handwriting. Sometimes he tucks the pages into Patrick’s pockets, or into his hat.

 

He thinks about this morning, when Pete wasn’t in the bed and a little slip of paper in his place.

 

find a safe place, brace yourself, bite your lips//I’m sending your fingernails back to your family cause I know you will be missed//So you can find a safe place, brace yourself

 

His mind wanders back to last night, Pete and warm touches and tripping over his pants and bumping noses when their mouths met.

 

Pete whispering into his ear and kisses along his neck and shoulder and collarbone, and then making quiet, muffled noises into the pillow, and the feeling of sheets sticking to his legs, feeling his skin flush hot like he was being burned.

 

Pete swallowed his moans, tugged at the strands of hair behind his ear, and it was like they’d switched and Pete was taking care of him.

 

Snap _out_ of it, Patrick.

 

“Patrick?”

 

Oh. Shit.

 

“Yeah?” He turns around, blinking, and wipes his wet fingers on his jeans. Spencer is standing there, face slightly worried. “Fuck.”

 

He’s trying to be stolid about it, Patrick can tell. “I think you know.”

 

“What happened? Where is he?” he demands, and is already rushing towards Spencer.

 

“Gabe carried him back to your cabin.”

 

“Okay, but what _happened_?”

 

“Well, that’s kind of why we came to get you, otherwise—because we don’t know what happened. I think he’s hallucinating, but—we didn’t want to bother you. We didn’t want you to worry about him.”

 

“Spence, it’s my fucking _job_ to worry about him.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s—it’s not your fault. Sorry. It’s just. Pete, you know?” When he reaches their cabin, the door is open, and Brendon and Jon and Ryan are standing in the doorway, nervous, like they don’t know what to do. He forces himself to ignore them for now and finds Pete curled up in bed, looking vulnerable. “Hey, asshat.”

 

Pete is shivering—it’s as if his skin is vibrating. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he doesn’t open them when Patrick kisses near his ear. He does, however, twitch at the corners of his lips, and his arms relax a little.

 

Patrick jams his hand into Pete’s. “Listen to me.”

 

“Like I could ever ignore you.”

 

He almost rolls his eyes. But that would be kind of pointless. “Can you look at me? Open your eyes. Come on.”

 

“Patrick,” Jon says, worried, and tries to take a step closer.

 

“No,” Patrick says, as if on automatic, and holds his hand out, and Jon falls backwards.

 

“What the—are you okay?”

 

He inhales deeply. “No, I’m not.” There’s a giant, golden umbrella over him and Pete now, and it looks so odd in his eyes because he hasn’t used his gift in such a long time. “Can you leave?” he asks, trying not to be rude, but he feels the hurt in Jon’s eyes as he backs away.

 

Patrick sighs. He feels exposed.

 

When the door slams shut, Pete breathes audibly. “I know you’re not okay. Listen, though, because you need to be.”

 

“How can I?”

 

The misery drips from his voice like the blood on a slit wrist.

 

It hurts, but he lets it stay because it does.

 

He kind of needs it to hurt.

 

“I need you to.”

 

“But I _can’t_ ,” he spits, and wants to rip out his hair and kick the ground and get punched in the face and pass out so he doesn’t have to deal with this.

 

“You will.” Pete’s hand goes lax, and Patrick holds on tighter. “You will, okay?” he repeats. “I’ll be here.”

 

Patrick is silent, because he knows Gifteds cannot die (not like normal people can, at least), but Pete is not an ordinary Gifted.

 

~~What if he can’t save him~~

 

“Shut up,” says Pete, voice weak and quiet but fond, and worms his way into Patrick’s brain.  

 

And stays there.

 

 _I’m here, see?_ he asks Patrick, stronger, now. _Listen._

 

Patrick drops his head onto Pete’s chest. “Stop,” he murmurs.

 

_Sing for me._

+++

 

Patrick takes a walk. To “clear his head” or something stupid that he tells Brendon. He feels bad for it. It’s fucking obvious what the truth is, and Brendon’s face falls realizing that Patrick can’t make himself say it.

 

“You’ve never used your gift in front of us before.” The voice is not expected, but not surprising, and Patrick sighs. He can’t take a walk without being followed.

 

“Sorry,” says Ryan. A look of curiosity passes over his face. Then he smiles, (like he knows something Patrick doesn’t but Patrick doesn’t think that aloud because it’s fucking absurd.) “You’re really good for him, you know?”

 

“I take care of him.”

 

Ryan laughs. “You keep him alive.”

 

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that.

 

“Jack told us Pete’s become a legacy. In the cities, they’re talking. You and him. I can see it. You’re his shield. You protect him, care for him, finish him. He’s like—the weapon. The leader.”

 

_Maybe, but you’ll always be the greater man, Patrick._

“The weapon?” he repeats, incredulous, ignoring the way his throat is closing. “Pete?”

 

“’My pen is the barrel of the gun,’” Ryan quips, then frowns at the confused look on Patrick’s face.

 

“What?”

 

“Didn’t he—did he show you his books?”

 

“No, just—just the one he wrote for me.”

 

“Patrick,” Ryan swallows, and his eyes are sad. Patrick’s throat hurts; he can’t breathe. “He wrote all of them for you.”

 

“Why would he?” His voice hurts and his stomach hurts and he doesn’t know how he’s standing.

 

“Who else would he write about?” Ryan asks, at the same time that the voice in his head goes, _Why_ wouldn’t _he?_

“ _Stop_.” He doesn’t know who he’s talking to at this point.

 

“Go ask him to show you. He’s waiting.”

 

“Why would he _hide_ them from me?”

 

“ _Go_.”

 

+++

 

“Hey there, bastard,” Pete says, cheerily when Patrick enters their cabin. His arms are at his sides, on top of the sheets, and his hands are cold when Patrick grabs them.

 

Patrick hesitates, then lets go. “Give me your books.”

 

“Thought you’d never ask.”

 

“Shut up.” He wants to add something like “this isn’t funny” but thinks it’s better not to. 

 

“Fine, then,” Pete sighs, and points to the kitchen. “There’re four of them. In the top cabinet.”

 

“How did you get them up there?” he asks, already pulling a chair over. Pete would have fallen trying to climb up.

 

“Gabe helped.”

 

“Did everyone but me know about these?”

 

Pete’s voice is quiet. “Some of them helped.”

 

“So you’ve been hiding stuff from me.”

 

“You can’t expect a guy not to have secrets. Hey, are you going to read them in front of me?”

 

Patrick finds the books and hops down, kicking the table in the process. Something falls out of one of the books, and he bends over to pick it up.

 

It’s his old guitar pick. Patrick remembers; he’d thought he lost it right before they left the city. It’s black, and on one side he’d scratched his initials in, white and rough and pressing into his thumb just right every time he held it.

 

He turns it over. PW.

 

“Where’d you get this?” (His voice is soft.)

 

“Keep it. Use it to remember.”

 

“Remember what?” He _knows_ what; just wants Pete to say it.

 

“Everything.”

 

Patrick drags the chair over to the bed; its legs scraping obnoxiously against the floor. He looks at the journals in his hand. They feel surreal.

 

The first one is blue. Then there are two black ones, and a red one. “Read them in order,” Pete says. Patrick ignores him.

 

Except he doesn’t, really, because he can’t ignore anything Pete says or does at this point.

 

 _You can’t ignore me, either,_ and Patrick clears his throat loudly to interrupt. At least he can do that.

 

The first two books are written neatly, conforming to the thin lines and with just a few smudges on each page. Patrick feels like he’s delving into Pete’s head as his gaze is caught by some of the lines.

 

and what meant the world had folded//like legs and fingers holding onto what escapes me//what he has:  a better kiss that never lasts.

 

//you said, between your smiles and regrets:  “don’t say it’s over.”

 

//dead and gone

 

//the calm before the storm set it off, and the sun burntouttonight.//THE SUN BURNT OUT TONIGHT.

 

Pete watches him with such intent, such intensity that Patrick’s face burns each time his eyes trace the words.

 

I swear I’d burn this city down to show you the light.

 

am I more than you bargained for yet?

 

the best part of believe is the lie//I’ll keep singing this one if you’ll keep believing it//I need to keep you like this in my mind

 

we walk the plank on a sinking ship.

 

Pete’s voice and words flood his head, and he can’t help but notice how messy the handwriting gets as he keeps turning pages. The spaces between words and letters get bigger, and there are more fingerprints appearing.

 

He gets to the last book, and Pete cracks a smile.

 

The only thing I haven’t done yet is die//it’s me and my plus-one in the afterlife//crowds are won and won and won again//but our hearts beat for the diehards

 

Long live the car cashed hearts//cry on the couch all the poets come to life.

 

His head _aches_ with the litany of phrases crammed into his head. It’s like Pete’s thoughts (his essence, in a way) forced into his mind, demanding him to pay attention. “I didn’t know.”

 

Pete smiles even harder. “Didn’t know what?”

 

“I don’t know. That you . . . felt this way? There’s so much here.”

 

“I want you to keep them. You can look at them and change them and add stuff, just. Keep them. Remember that they’re for you.”

 

“What do you want me to do with them?” His voice cracks on the second “do.”

 

“Whatever you want to.”

 

“ _Please_ , Pete.”

 

Pete shrugs. “I don’t care. One request, though—I want you to sing the last one. At the end of the red book. Okay?”

 

“Fine. Now?”

 

“Mmm. No. Come closer, though. Hold me.”

 

Patrick almost screws up his face and cries; stupid Pete, pretending so well to be strong.

 

“Get in bed with me. Come on.”

 

And Patrick remembers. “Come on, Pete had said, impatient, and yanked him over the fence so that he landed in the sand. It got in his hair and in his hat, and he threw most of it at Pete in retaliation.

 

Then they held hands. Then, two seconds after that, they’d let go, and raced out to the car that was waiting, exactly four miles from the city’s borders.

 

So Patrick does come. He peels off his sweater and let’s Pete bruise his hips (holding onto each other for dear life), and he lets Pete bite his neck, which is when he shoves his open mouth into the pillow and rubs up against Pete, sobbing.

 

Pete yanks his hair and surrounds Patrick in skin and heartbeats and kisses and everything that feels alive. Patrick holds on to him, and remembers.

 

Sliding out of the car at night, when the ground wouldn’t burn their feet, and being without the pollution of the city and seeing galaxies in the sky that were so far away but so easy to touch.

 

Getting high on each other, and the music, and the sky above them like a heaven that threatened to crush them into the ground. He feels Pete pressing his fingers to his elbow, his lower back, then even lower, and remembers the first night, rolling around in the sand and kissing and crying like he is now.

 

Crying because they made it.

 

He remembers remembering. Playing in Andy’s basement, Pete said to him. Listening to Gerard cry through the microphone, he said back. Laughing at Joe when he spun his guitar and fell. Watching the cars from the roof of Patrick’s apartment. And on and on and on, an exchange of mutual memories.

 

“You’re my kind of insane,” Pete said fondly. Patrick understood.

 

He still understands. Pete’s a part of him. They _share_ the insanity.

 

Pete is never leaving Patrick’s head.

 

Patrick kisses Pete, then, warm and hard and soft, all at once. They roll hips against each other, and then Patrick only hears and feels Pete and sees black, and then they both fall asleep.

 

+++

 

It’s afternoon when he wakes up, and Pete is writing. He’s at the end of a green book, fat and big and full of his words, and Patrick’s head spins at the idea of _more_. He can’t say he’s complaining, though.

 

To fulfill Pete’s request, he sings while Pete finishes. “I’m adding in what you were thinking last night,” he explains. “All those days in the desert. I can’t believe you still remember.”

 

“I can’t, either,” he murmurs. Pete hears it, but doesn’t say anything.

 

“The beginning of this book is all from me,” says Pete. He doesn’t look at Patrick. “I want you to know. And remember. Keep it safe. If not for you, then for me.”

 

Patrick nods, and sings.

 

“They say the captain goes down with the ship//So when the world ends, will God go down with it?”

 

He cries when he finishes, but Pete tells him it was perfect. His words and Patrick’s voice, Patrick’s music. Him and Patrick.

 

“Always,” he tells him. “And I know you’ll do great things with the other books.”

 

“Not without you,” he says, and crumples his face. He cries into Pete’s shirt. He knows, now, what will happen. There is no more hiding.

 

“You did everything. Look at the camp. They’ll carry on. I know you will, too, because we’ve become a legend. You’ll carry on that legend.” Pete strokes him, now, “words live forever, but people don’t,” and Patrick chokes, says hoarsely:

 

“I’m not fucking letting you leave.”

 

“Don’t you see? Make the songs, make people listen. They’ll follow. I’ll live forever. In the words. In your head.” He pauses. “Madness. You think you’re insane. You think I’m dying. I’m not. I’m losing myself and crawling into your head—I’m _living_ , Patrick. A madness.”

 

“No,” he chokes, but Pete just shoves the book into his hands.

 

“Keep it,” he says sternly. “It’s my goodbye present.” And Pete leaves.

 

+++

Patrick finds it two days later. It’s shoved into ~~their~~ his pillow and scratches his face when he rolls over. Some of the lines are blurry, because he’s been crying so much, and the tears bleed through the fabric, and he decides to open it when the voice in his head stops talking.

 

Pete wasn’t completely right. He talks to Patrick, in his head, and sometimes out of the corner of his eye he sees Pete with his back turned, writing in a book, but he disappears when Patrick concentrates.

 

The words are all blended together. It’s a lot simpler, too. He can hear Pete reciting it, as the voice does every time Patrick looks at a page stained with his words.

 

hurry hurry you put my head in such a flurry//freckle, freckle//what makes you so special?

 

//let me in knowing how heartwarming it is inside your skin

 

//I’m a sunshine machine//I want to get stuck and be golden in your memory

 

He gets to the bottom.

 

//I’m gonna leave you I’m gonna teach you//how we’re all alone.

 

+++

 

That night, Gerard and Frank sing of a parade.

 

You’re dead and gone.

 

Your weary widow marches on.

 

Your memory will carry on. We’ll carry on.

 

Patrick sees him again, sitting cross-legged, toes touching the flames. He smiles at him, and he _swears_ the figure—because it’s _not_ Pete, he convinces himself—mouths his name.

 

Then it stands and stretches, and walks into the flames. It doesn’t disappear.

 

It’s his turn. “Pete wrote this for me,” he hears himself saying, “as well as for all of you. He’s gone, but he’s the reason we’re alive. Sing with me.”

 

I’ve got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match . . .

 

The figure burns in the flames, and rises up, like a bird, in the sparks. The sparks turn into stars and become galaxies, and Patrick knows. He will always remember.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. So I cried a lot while writing this. And watched Live in Phoenix and listened to a lot of Fall Out Boy.
> 
> *Some of the lyrics I put in the fic have been edited to match context, or rearranged, or are not presented in order.
> 
> Songs whose lyrics appear in the fic are, in this order:  
> Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes  
> Calm Before the Storm  
> Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year  
> Sugar, We're Going Down  
> Don't You Know Who I Think I Am  
> Thriller (by Fall Out Boy)  
> w.a.m.s  
> Welcome to the Black Parade  
> and What a Catch, Donnie.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Let's hold hands and hope Fall Out Boy comes off hiatus.
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: 2/22/2013 this work now has a sequel/prequel! "stay where I can see you" has been posted.


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